Toronto mayor accused of endangering his city

In a strongly worded opinion piece, Ken Greenberg, one of Canada's leading urban planners, and John Alschuler, a longtime adviser to the City of New York, argue that Toronto's recently installed mayor, Rob Ford, is initiating actions that will harm Toronto's quality of life.

In the magazine Spacing Toronto, which explores urban issues, Greenberg and Alschuler contend: 

Toronto City Council's imminent vote on the City's budget is among the most significant in our recent history. Meeting Mayor Ford's goal of cutting $744 million dollars requires deep cuts ranging from less plowing and cleaning of streets to sending more trash to landfills, to cutting public health programs, school breakfasts, crossing guards, grants to arts and culture, parks maintenance, planning, public art, drug prevention programs, eliminating bus routes, closing library branches among many many other things. When combined with core service cuts, user fees, staff reductions and dismantling and sell-offs, what is being proposed is an unprecedented assault on municipal government's ability to invest in our future.

Greenberg, principal in Greenberg Consultants, and Alschuler, chairman of HR&A Advisors in New York, acknowledge that "aggressive action is needed to restore fiscal balance" to Toronto, but "What we do not need is a blunt assault that will leave us neither fiscally stable nor competitive for the future."

"Our quality of life is our most important asset and the only key to a prosperous future!" they declare. "Torontonians cannot afford to squander it on the altar of a deeply flawed ideology."

The 21st century promises to be a time of urban growth, with greater density in cities and an influx of immigrants, Greenberg and Alschuler say. They contend that Mayor Michael Bloomberg—willing to raise taxes but also devoted to making government more efficient—shows how a leading city can deal with today's challenges. Toronto, by contrast, is turning away from policies that foster the city's long-run prosperity and livability, they argue.

David Pylyp, a Torontonian who has lived in New York during the Bloomberg administration, sent Spacing Toronto a response explaining how Bloomberg has, in his view, run New York very well.

Pylyp said:

So rather than doing what Ford would do, which is to blunder around ripping out bike lanes or banning LRT based purely on emotion and gut, he trusts his very intelligent and experienced staff to come up with ideas like through-streets (no turns during rush hour), pedestrian plazas (chiefly on Broadway), separated bike lanes (with floating parking), etc. The city then tests them by building a few and studying GPS data gathered from taxis. Since all cabs have GPS now, and since cabs make up a huge portion of traffic on all Manhattan streets below 96th St, you can get very good data on what changes in speed occur after making changes to a street. There is no anti-left or anti-right rhetoric, just data, and the results are stunning."

Greenberg discusses Toronto and other cities at greater length in his new book, Walking Home: The Life and Lessons of a City Builder (Random House Canada), which is reviewed in the soon-to-be-distributed September issue of New Urban News. 

Spacing was launched in 2003 by a group of young journalists and public space advvocates who felt Toronto needed a publication that would tackle key urban issues neglected by the local media, including public transit, urban design, public art, community planning, and sustainable development. The publication also has operations called Spacing Montreal, Spacing Atlantic, and Spacing Ottawa.

Recent topics in Spacing have included bike infrastructure and "slow streets." In Vancouver, Spacing has recently teamed up with a similar publication called re:place to create Spacing Vancouver. With Spacing as overall coordinator, a network of blogs on urban issues in Canada has come into being.